The Kathmandu Valley of Nepal epitomizes the growing urbanization trend spreading across the Himalayan foothills. This metropolitan valley has experienced a significant transformation of its landscapes in the last four decades resulting in substantial land use and land cover (LULC) change; however, no major systematic analysis of the urbanization trend and LULC has been conducted on this valley since 2000. When considering the importance of using LULC change as a window to study the broader changes in socio-ecological systems of this valley, our study first detected LULC change trajectories of this valley using four Landsat images of the year 1989, 1999, 2009, and 2016, and then analyzed the detected change in the light of a set of proximate causes and factors driving those changes. A pixel-based hybrid classification (unsupervised followed by supervised) approach was employed to classify these images into five LULC categories and analyze the LULC trajectories detected from them. Our results show that urban area expanded up to 412% in last three decades and the most of this expansion occurred with the conversions of 31% agricultural land. The majority of the urban expansion happened during 1989–2009, and it is still growing along the major roads in a concentric pattern, significantly altering the cityscape of the valley. The centrality feature of Kathmandu valley and the massive surge in rural-to-urban migration are identified as the primary proximate causes of the fast expansion of built-up areas and rapid conversions of agricultural areas.

Societies around the world have shown a strong capacity for responding to climatic and other stresses throughout history. Based on the large body of literature on adaptation to both climatic and other stresses, this paper examines the scalar interconnections and nested hierarchical nature of adaptation decision. Drawing on case studies from around the world, we propose three stages of nested adaptation: (a) coping with change, (b) incremental adjustment to manage risk, and (c) system transformation. The effectiveness of coping is often marginal but forms benchmarks against which future adaptation to climate change can be assessed. Incremental adaptations, largely associated with technological fixes, involve more exogenous actors and operate at a greater scale than coping. Transformational adaptation is expected to occur when the rate and magnitude of change threatens to overwhelm the system. Nested with multiple-scale spatial hierarchy, the three pathways to climate adaptation are interconnected; understanding the cross-scale interactions, feedback loops and the spatial and temporal dynamics within the hierarchy is important because it affects planning and policy integration, including allocation of financial resources.

This chapter critically reviews the existing knowledge on livelihoods, poverty, and vulnerability in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH). Development in mountain areas and the practices of people in these areas are uniquely conditioned by distinct characteristics that we term “mountain specificities”. Some of these specificities—such as inaccessibility, fragility, and marginality—constrain development. Others—such as abundant biological diversity, ecological niches, and adaptation mechanisms—present development opportunities for mountain people.

Solar radiation management (SRM) technologies would reflect a small amount of incoming solar radiation back into space before the radiation can warm the planet. Although SRM may emerge as a useful component of a global response to climate change, there is also good reason for caution. In June 2017, the Academic Working Group on Climate Engineering Governance released a policy report, “Governing Solar Radiation Management”, which developed a set of objectives to govern SRM in the near-term future: (1) keep mitigation and adaptation first; (2) thoroughly and transparently evaluate risks, burdens, and benefits; (3) enable responsible knowledge creation; and (4) ensure robust governance before any consideration of deployment. To advance the governance objectives identified above, the working group developed twelve recommendations, grouped into three clusters: (1) create politically legitimate deliberative bodies; (2) leverage existing institutions; and (3) make research transparent and accountable. This communication discusses the rationale behind each cluster and elaborates on a subset of the recommendations from each cluster.

Storied to fit into the sociocultural practices and the materiality of a place, the geography of imaginaries has expanded within the disciplinary lexicon since the beginning of the twenty-first century. This Focus section advances both theoretical and empirical approaches that demonstrate how cultural, technological, and environmental imaginaries emerge, coalesce, and circulate among policy actors and others involved in the governance of the environment. It aims to fill an existing gap between more general studies of imaginaries in science, technology, and innovation and applied approaches that deal with particular outcomes in the governance of the environment. The articles within this Focus section contribute three key insights to our understanding of the complex relationships between imagination and environmental governance. First, the articles demonstrate that there are always multiple imaginaries at play when it comes to the governance of the environment. Second, and relatedly, they also examine how global-spanning imaginaries related to climate change, biodiversity, food security, and urbanization get translated into local cultural contexts. Finally, the articles demonstrate that effective environmental governance requires imagination while also showing that imagination is not a panacea. Imagination, however, opens up possibilities for rethinking human–environment relationships for envisioning radically different futures.